Changes in Specific Dietary Factors May Have Big Impact on Long-Term Weight Gain - June 22, 2011 -2011 Releases - Press Releases - Harvard School of Public Health

Changes in Specific Dietary Factors May Have Big Impact on Long-Term Weight Gain - June 22, 2011 -2011 Releases - Press Releases - Harvard School of Public Health:

In a series of three separate studies looking at how changes in multiple dietary and other lifestyle factors relate to long-term weight gain, Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers found that modest changes in specific foods and beverages, physical activity, TV-watching, and sleep duration were strongly linked with long-term weight gain. Changes in diet, in particular, had the strongest associations with differences in weight gain.

London Nutritionist from Foods for Life Nutrition and Health Consultancy Yvonne Bishop-Weston said today

"It's marvelous to finally see another piece of solid research to add more scientific weight to what nutritionists have known for years but can't prove because we can't afford a double blind placebo trial of thousands of people and then subject it to meta analysis. We know because we see dramatic results in our clinics where others have failed. There needs to be more scientific study and solid research on preventative medicine to silence the whinging critics of the quackology obscessed Dr Do-Littles.

The status quo of over-simplistic rhetoric of calories in = calories out isn't even bio-chemically logical. Of course 100kcal of vegetables full of vitamins, minerals, fibre, protein, antioxidants and essential fats is going to have a different consequence on the body than 100kcal of doughnut or chips fried in partially hydrogenated trans fat. It's not rocket science, it's common sense - that's sadly something lacking in some of the high profile media vigilante nutritionist bashers.

The study appears in the June 23, 2011, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Read the study.

"For example, the foods associated with the greatest weight gain over the 20-year study period included potato chips (for each one increased daily serving, +1.69 lb more weight gain every 4 years), other potatoes (1.28 lb), sugar-sweetened beverages (1.00 lb), unprocessed meats (0.95 lb), and processed meats (0.93 lb). Of note, several foods associated with less weight gain when their consumption was actually increased, including vegetables (−0.22 lb), whole grains (−0.37 lb), fruits (−0.49 lb), nuts (−0.57 lb) and yogurt (−0.82 lb). Evaluating all changes in diet together, participants in the lower 20% of dietary changes gained nearly 4 lbs more each 4 years than those in the top 20% —an amount equivalent to the average weight gain in the population overall.

For diet, focusing only on total calories may not be the most useful way to consume fewer calories than one expends, say the researchers. Other yardsticks, such as content of total fat, energy density, or sugars, could also be misleading. Rather, they found that eating more healthful foods and beverages—focusing on overall dietary quality—was most important.

The most useful dietary metrics for preventing long-term weight gain appeared to be:

Focus on improving carbohydrate quality by eating less liquid sugars (e.g. soda) and other sweets, as well as fewer starches (e.g. potatoes) and refined grains (e.g. white bread, white rice, breakfast cereals low in fiber, other refined carbohydrates).
Focus on eating more minimally processed foods (e.g. fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, yogurt) and fewer highly processed foods (e.g. white breads, processed meats, sugary beverages).

We look forward to more studies like this such as PCRM Research on Nutrition

What The World Eats - Shocking Photos

What The World Eats - Shocking Photos: Very interesting look in photos at typical weekly shopping for families around the world

These images are from the book 'Hungry Planet: What the World Eats' by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluision. It's an inspired idea, to better understand the human diet, explore what culturally diverse families eat for a week. Their portraits feature pictures of each family with a week's worth of food purchases. We soon learn that diet is determined by largely uncontrollable forces like poverty, conflict and globalization, which can bring change with startling speed. Thus cultures can move, sometimes in a single jump, from traditional diets to the vexed plenty of global-food production. People have more to eat and, too often, eat more of nutritionally questionable food. And their health suffers.

Experts vote Vegan Diet Best for Diabetes

Complete Book of Vegan Cooking

A panel of 22 health experts including Doctors, registered nutritionists and specialists in diabetes, heart health, human behavior, and weight loss, reviewed detailed assessments prepared by U.S. News of 20 diets. The experts rated each diet in seven categories, including short- and long-term weight loss, ease of compliance, safety, and nutrition.

A vegan diet was voted as joint second in US News Rankings Best Diets section for Diabetes.

Presumably it fell short of first place due to compliance, despite the science, people are hooked on meat and addictive fatty cheese and are yet to discover the delicious alternatives.

Vegan Cookbook - Vegan Diets

British Heart Foundation Phoney Diet

The British Heart Foundation have lashed out at a diet claiming to be a BHF diet. Some might say a bit rich considering the fairly non-committal dietary advice usually dished out by BHF , but this fake BHF diet is particularly bad and includes items that even the UK govt warns against eating.

BHF senior heart health dietitian, Victoria Taylor, said:

“Apart from being wholly unappetising with the likes of two frankfurters with a cup of cabbage and half a cup of carrots for a meal, this ( bogus BHF ) diet is so restrictive in terms of the range and quantity of food that it lacks a number of nutrients we need to stay healthy.

“The lack of fibre means followers could develop constipation while long-term use could also leave you deficient in calcium and iron, which can result in fragile bones and teeth and feeling constantly tired and lethargic if left unchecked.

“Most people are likely to lose largely water and some muscle, rather than the fat they really want to shed on this kind of crash diet. Over time, the muscle loss can be bad news as it means that the rate your body burns calories, whether active or resting, can actually slow down – the last thing dieters want.

Yvonne Bishop-Weston Leading UK Nutritionist and Health Consultant claims the trouble is most dieters suddenly reach a crisis point and want quick fix solutions and don't dare think about the consequences.

Yvonne says;

"Most diet products are trying to tie you in for ever in a catch 22 situation of carry on or gain weight again.

"Vary rarely is there any scientific basis for these diets, or if there is it is short term and completely forgetting that it defies the individual body's inbuilt natural instincts and can often increase risks of chronic diseases"

"Low Fat products are often full of cheap sugar or artificial sweeteners, Low Carb products are often full of cheap fat and devoid of natural soluble fibre, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants."

The Dukan diet tries to skip round the failings of The Atkins diet with spoonfuls of oatbran (hmm.. Yum Yum) but still fails to reach the eight a day portions of fruit and vegetables shown in a recent major study by Oxford University that you need to dramatically reduce the fatal risks of heart disease."

It seems the best way of achieving a long term solution for a weight loss diet that is sustainable, practical and healthy is to visit a qualified, experienced, competent nutritionist who can work out exactly what your body needs to be optimally fit and healthy and how to fit that into your normal busy working schedule.

The harsh truth there is no simple, easy, yet to be discovered, quick fix solution to years of nutritional abuse of your body, if it sounds too good to be true, that's because it is. Your body needs real food, complete food, natural food, not the latest patented gimmicks. You also need to exercise to build muscle and yes that requires protein but not the sort of protein that is processed and comes free with spoonfuls of saturated animal fat and dietary cholesterol. Most importantly you need to deal with stress and the effects of stress on your hormones and immune system a positive outlook and motivation is the first hurdle to sustained weight-loss" warns Yvonne

To book an appointment with top UK nutritionists visit Nutritionist London, Nutritionist Hampshire

Vitamins and Minerals under Attack

Most 'wasting money on health supplements' finds NHS report - Telegraph

Be prepared to see much more of this!

The government should be be very wary about joining the pharmaceutical industry lobbiests led hypocritical war on nutritionists, supplements and herbal remedies whilst they sit by and do relatively nothing to quell the nations dependency on nutrient depleted processed foods. They clearly think people are stupid, and will trust an institution that condones catering by Burger King in Hospitals and spends an annual fortune on laxatives over and above personal recommendation and succesful personal experience. One look at hospital food is enough to verify the extent of the NHS practical expertise and competance in the field of applied nutrition.

This phoney criticism of the dangers of vitamins, minerals anti-oxidants and essential fats will eventually backfire on the perpetrators of this media onslaught as eventually, enevitably someone will ask the question of how it is that so many ineffective and detrimental drugs end up costing the taxpayer so much money for so little relief whilst so many people have experience of simple, practical and far more effective nutritional solutions to their health problems.

It's no wonder Pharmaceutical companies are running scared and on the offensive, Doctors are increasingly in charge of their own budgets so are now far less likely to be swayed by all expenses paid foreign trips and new computers in exchange for recommending expensive designer solutions for erectile dysfunction when all their patients really need are more fruit and vegetables in their diet.

Nutritionists are having the tools of their trade taken away, gagged from talking in public about what they do, have goal posts moved every few months, yet still they continue to win patient hearts on merit and by recommendation because they get practical results for so many patients who have previously only experienced failure.

Be scared big pharma, be very very scared, your lies, hypocrisy and political skuldugery are leaving the public ever distrustful of your commitment to public health and seeing your motives exposed as pure naked greed for power and money at any cost.

An apple a day keeps the Doctor away? Research

Apple: The health fruit? | The Why Files:

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away”? That question has been on the mind of Bahram Arjmandi, professor and chair of the department of nutrition, food and exercise sciences at Florida State University.
His answer, presented at the Experimental Biology 2011 meeting in Washington this week, is that "Apples have a profound effect on total cholesterol, and also on the “good” and “bad” types of cholesterol. They caused a major reduction in inflammatory proteins that are implicated in a number of serious diseases."
Arjmandi rounded up 100 women who had just passed menopause — a time when dropping levels of estrogen lead to unhealthy changes in cholesterol levels that allow women to catch up with the male rate of cardiovascular disease.
Randomly dividing his volunteers, Arjmandi asked one group to supplement their normal diet with dried prunes. The treatment group got one-a-day packages containing 75 grams — about 2.5 ounces — of dried apple.
Arjmandi used dry apples rather than the equivalent one or two fresh apples as a way to standardize the “dose,” but he says fresh fruit is likely to be even more healthy.
If the object of these tests was a pill, the results after one year would certainly boost the stock of the drugmaker: among the apple-eaters, total cholesterol fell by 14 percent and low-density lipoprotein (LDL, the harmful fraction of cholesterol) fell 23 percent. High levels of both total cholesterol and LDL are linked to damage to blood vessels, heart attacks and strokes.
Meanwhile, the level of a protective type of cholesterol called high-density lipoprotein (HDL) rose 3 to 4 percent.

(Anti-) inflammatory results

Moving beyond cholesterol, the level of C-reactive protein fell 32 percent. “This is significant, and not just in a statistical sense but in clinical relevance,” says Arjmandi. “CRP is associated with inflammation, and is considered a marker for cardiovascular disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.”
The study was partly funded by the United States Department of Agriculture, and got no funding from the apple industry.

And the active ingredient is…

What makes apples so healthy? Although both pectin, a soluble fiber, and chemicals called polyphenols are thought to confer health benefits, Arjmandi says, “an apple is more than these compounds. I’ve been working on functional foods [which give health benefits] for 20 years, and I find it’s not good to approach whole fruit or whole vegetables like drugs. If you isolate the component chemicals and take them, you get some benefits, but you will deprive yourself of greater benefits.”

The World's Healthiest Foods www.whfoods.com tells us

The phytonutrients in apples can help you regulate your blood sugar. Recent research has shown that apple polyphenols can help prevent spikes in blood sugar through a variety of mechanisms. Flavonoids like quercetin found in apples can inhibit enzymes like alpha-amylase and alpha-glucosidase. Since these enzymes are involved in the breakdown of complex carbohydrates into simple sugars, your blood sugar has fewer simple sugars to deal with when these enzymes are inhibited. In addition, the polyphenols in apple have been shown to lessen absorption of glucose from the digestive tract; to stimulate the beta cells of the pancreas to secrete insulin; and to increase uptake of glucose from the blood via stimulation of insulin receptors. All of these mechanisms triggered by apple polyphenols can make it easier for you to regulate your blood sugar.

Scientists have recently shown that important health benefits of apples may stem from their impact on bacteria in the digestive tract. In studies on laboratory animals, intake of apples is now known to significantly alter amounts of two bacteria (Clostridiales and Bacteriodes) in the large intestine. As a result of these bacterial changes, metabolism in the large intestine is also changed, and many of these changes appear to provide health benefits. For example, due to bacterial changes in the large intestine, there appears to be more fuel available to the large intestine cells (in the form of butyric acid) after apple is consumed. 

Puberty starting earlier for many girls: study - The Early Show - CBS News

Puberty starting earlier for many girls: study - The Early Show - CBS News: A few recent studies point to toxins in the environment as a possible cause or at least exasperating the situation in children.

About 15 percent of American girls now begin puberty by age 7, according to a study of 1,239 girls published last year in the journal Pediatrics. One in 10 white girls begin developing breasts by that age - twice the rate seen in a 1997 study. Among black girls, 23 percent hit puberty by age 7.

Special Section: Dr. Jennifer Ashton

On "The Early Show" CBS News Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton, an OB-GYN who specializes in adolescent care, said "early puberty," also known as "precocious puberty," has risks for girls.

"Body fat generates the hormone estrogen, partially," Ashton said. "Estrogen is part of the hormones that triggers puberty. A lot more children are overweight and obese. Environmental exposures, things like BPA (Bisphenol A) that are ubiquitous in our environment can have hormone-like activity and research is ongoing as to whether that plays a role. And your family history - if your mother went through early puberty, you have a greater chance of going through early puberty, as well."

Early puberty could affect girls as they get older, Ashton said. They have an increased risk of breast cancer and uterine cancer, she said, because these girls have more time to be exposed to the estrogen hormone

Another study links Pesticides to increased risk of ADHD

Exposure to high levels of a common pesticide, found on many popular fruits and produce, could raise the odds for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children, according to a study appearing in the June 2011 issue of Pediatrics.

The study on pesticides and health reports, however, that there is no evidence that organophosphate pesticide exposure can actually cause ADHD.

Pesticide Effect on Health

Pesticides effects on humans are damage to the nervous system, reproductive system and other organs, disruption of hormone function, immune dysfunction and developmental and behavioral abnormalities.

Organophosphates Widely Used

"Organophosphates are one of the most widely used pesticides in agriculture to protect crops and fruits and vegetables," according to lead author Maryse Bouchard, Ph.D., adjunct researcher, department of environmental and occupational health, University of Montreal and Sainte-Justine University Hospital Centre, Canada. "For children, the major source of exposure would be the diet -- fruits and vegetables in particular."

Organophosphate pesticides account for approximately half the insecticide use in the U.S. and are applied to many conventionally grown foods important in children’s diets.

In 2008, the USDA conducted tests that found malathion (one of the 40 organophosphate pesticides) residues in 28% of frozen blueberries, 25% of strawberries, and 19% of celery.

Previous Pesticide Exposure Research Links Pesticide Exposure During Pregnacy to Developmental Problems in Offspring

Previous research has shown an association between both prenatal and postnatal organophosphate exposure and developmental problems in young children. But most prior studies have focused on excessive rather than average exposure to organophosphates.

Pesticide – ADHD Study

The researchers analyzed data on pesticide exposure and ADHD in more than 1,100 American children aged 8 to 15.

Children with higher pesticide levels in their urine were more likely to have ADHD, according to the researchers.

"The analysis showed that the higher the level of exposure [as measured by metabolites in the urine], the higher the odds of having ADHD," said Bouchard.

Just how might pesticides harm brain development? According to the authors, high doses of organophosphates pesticides may inhibit acetylcholinesterase, a nervous system enzyme. Lower doses of organophosphates pesticides may affect different growth factors and neurotransmitters.

The findings, if replicated, may provide another clue into the causes of ADHD, a condition which affects three to seven percent of school-aged children, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

SOURCES:

• Bouchard MF, Bellinger DC, Wright RO, et al. Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Urinary Metabolites of Organophosphate Pesticides. Pediatrics 2010;125:e1270–e1277
• Maryse Bouchard, Ph.D., adjunct researcher, department of environmental and occupational health, University of Montreal and Sainte-Justine University Hospital Centre, Canada;